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Woody Woodpecker, Universal Studios' Biggest Star
Woody Woodpecker, Universal Studios' Biggest Star is the first episode of Universal Kids' late-night animation anthology program, Blastoons!. It features six cartoons, featuring Universal Studios' true major star: Woody Woodpecker. *''Woody Woodpecker'' (1941) *''The Coo Coo Bird'' (1947) *The animated sequence of Destination Moon (1950) *''Born to Peck'' (1952) *After the Ball'' (1956) *''Wacky-Bye Baby'' (1948) Part One: Opening Good evening, and welcome to Blastoons! on Universal Kids. Tonight, we take a look at Universal's greatest star, not Littlefoot from The Land Before Time, not Gru from Despicable Me, but an all-American woodpecker: Woody Woodpecker. In 1940, when Walter Lantz married Grace Stafford, and having a honeymoon in the cabin at Sherwood Lake, California, he notices there's pesky little woodpecker pecking the roof.As he telling Dallas attorney Rod Phelps about woodpecker during the visit, Lantz always wanted to shoot the destructive little bird, but he was told by Gracie, not to shoot that poor cute little woodpecker, suggesting that he created his new cartoon character, and suddenly, one of the world's best loved fine-feathered comedians was born. Walter's newest character was Woody. When Walter Lantz created the very first Woody Woodpecker cartoon, Lantz and his crew loved this animated short, and Universal Studios was very exciting, but unfortunately executive producer of Universal shorts, Bernie Kreiser, does not like the woodpecker character. However, when Bernie told him to reject his newest cartoon, Lantz responded him, that his woodpecker cartoon was actually going to released. Part Two: Trivia #1 - Woody Woodpecker's Television Career Before Commercial Break Now, it's time for Blastoons! trivia. Woody Woodpecker was one of American animation's biggest successes in the movie-going public. But, something happened that Walter Lantz and his animation crew at Universal Studios, decided to create new cartoons shorts for TV. What happened? We'll return in a moment, with the answer on Blastoons!, only on Universal Kids. After Commercial Break Welcome back to Blastoons! trivia. Unfortunately, during the 1950's, Walter Lantz's theatrical cartoon business was losing the money. He knew that the only way to subsidize the rising costs of new cartoons was to release his product to television. The executive producer of Universal shorts, Norman Gluck decided to make a deal with the Leo Burnett Agency to release Universal cartoons on television. Burnett handled the Kellogg's cereal account, and Lantz soon met with the Kellogg's crew to sign up the contract. In the late-50s, Universal Studios, produce the new animated TV series for the ABC network, called The Woody Woodpecker Show. But surprisingly, with the success of the TV series, Walter Lantz and his crew, happily returned to its theatrical cartoon business. Part One: Opening Part One: Opening Part Trivia #2 - Opening Part Five: Trivia #3 - The Other Film Distributor Before Commercial Break Now, it's time for Blastoons! trivia. Woody Woodpecker was Universal's major cartoon star. But during his career, Universal Pictures distributed almost every Walter Lantz cartoon. What is the only other movie studio around Hollywood, to distribute a Walter Lantz cartoon, and what happened two years later? We'll return in just a moment, with the answer. After Commercial Break Welcome back to Blastoons! trivia. United Artists studio never liked the character of Woody Woodpecker. It thought Woody was a fine-feathered fiend.